Here’s What Happened at Unite, Shopify’s First Partner and Developer Conference

Tickets for Unite 2018 are sold out! In the coming weeks, we’ll have more information on how you can take part virtually in Shopify’s third annual Partner and Developer Conference, running May 7-9. In the meantime, relive the magic of last year’s conference.

Last week we kicked-off our inaugural Partner and Developer Conference:

Unite. Hundreds of partners from around the world joined us in San Francisco for two days of inspirational talks and dynamic conversations that explored Shopify’s roadmap and the future of commerce. In the words of Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke, “it was probably the most overdue conference in the tech industry.”

One of the biggest takeaways from the conference was how important our partner ecosystem is to the success of our platform. That’s why we decided tolivestream the main stage talks on Day 1 of the conference — to share the action with all of our partners who couldn’t be at Unite in person. It’s also why we recorded all of the main stage talks and gathered them together to share with you today.

In case you weren’t able to tune in during the livestream — or if you just want to relive the excitement — here are the recordings of the main stage presentations and product announcements from Day 1 of Unite.

The future of commerce — CEO Tobi Lütke

In this keynote, Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke shares Shopify’s vision for the future.

Introducing the Online Store Editor & Scripts — Jean-Michel Lemieux

Jean-Michel Lemieux, Senior Vice-President of Engineering, demos the new Online Store Editor and Shopify Scripts. The Online Store Editor will give designers the ability to build more innovative, customizable, and merchant-friendly themes, while Shopify Scripts will allow designers to write server side code on Shopify, giving them even greater control over the way their online store functions.

Add commerce to any site with the Javascript Buy SDK — Monika Piotrowicz

Monika Piotrowicz, Director of Front End Development, introduces the JavaScript Buy SDK. This SDK allows designers and developers to add buy buttons to any website — including WordPress and Squarespace, or JavaScript apps.

Introducing the new Sales Channel SDK — Satish Kanwar

Satish Kanwar, Director of Product at Shopify, introduces the new Sales Channel SDK. Starting today, developers can begin building new sales channels for Shopify, so merchants can use Shopify to sell anywhere their customers are.

AMA with Tobi Lütke

Director of Apps, Atlee Clark sits down with Shopify CEO and founder Tobi Lütke for an Ask Me Anything session. Questions range from how prominent computer programming is in his daily routine to the significance of Virtual Reality on the future of commerce.

Here’s what our partners are saying about Unite

Apart from the crazy amount of social chatter on Twitter and Instagram, a few of partners wrote some detailed reviews of their experience at Unite. Check out what they had to say!

That’s a wrap!

Unite 2016 was an amazing experience and we can’t wait to do it all again. Want to make sure you’re there in 2017? Sign-up to our Unite mailing list to be the first to receive exclusive updates about next year’s conference.